fasstrack

The King is dead. Long live the King (;

Max and some primo ex-Herders? I've heard the big band stuff already. I'd get it to hear Bird and Max together again. Thanks.

Thanks!

I couldn't make out the cover w/my dinky cell phone. It's called Charlie Parker with The Orchestra, right? One chart is Thou Swell? Almost like Being in Love? Who's in the small group? How do you cure the heartbreak of psoriasis? Alright, forget the last one...

I honestly don't know anything about John Zorn. My ears tell me they're similar and I've always relied on and trusted them. It's the way notes are approached, not dead on but bent, and an inexact concept of pitch that are similar and give them both personality. To me, that is. I'm not one of these egghead type musicians, always analyzing and looking for connections. Sometimes I wish I were. This was just an observation, not something I'm going to spend years studying like an ethnomusicologist. A part of me IS interested in similarities in people, and I'm sure that's part of what draws me to being a performing musician as opposed to a purely behind-the-scenes contributor such as an arranger, trying to get to something universal people can feel. And please excuse that self-reflective moment. Just trying to explain myself. Anyway my ear and intuition sorts a lot of things out and right or wrong the similarity was noticeable.

Well, I answered part of my own question anyway. A bio site claims that Django's first recordings were with accordianist Jean Vassaide, for the Ideal label. No further info on other personnel given, but it was discussed in the context of his teen years. I wonder if this was before the celebrated accident that occurred at age 18? Again, if anyone knows anything about these recordings please jump in..

Within the last year a WKCR show had a lengthy sequence on very early Django, from before these recordings or the Hot Club. They had no jazz as such, it was French cafe-style standards featuring and accordian, chanteuse and probably more singers-and Django as a young sideman, playing few if any solos. The recordings may have been made in the latest 20s or earliest 30s. You could say they're probably most coveted by Django completists. But I was thrown for a loop, never having heard this stuff. May have been his first recordings, and my foggy memory seems to recall that some of it was live, perhaps Parisian radio airshots that survived. There was at least 45 minutes worth of material. Does anyone have any idea who these people were and if the recordings are commercially available? I'd love to know.

Did the blister heal yet? (;

(: Whew. Thought I was gonna open this and it would say I was half-ass. Which I wouldn't deny... As for myself, I've given up trying to keep up with Bird practicing. My new, readjusted target: Tweetie Pie.. If that doesn't work out either waiting in the, um, wings are Heckyl and Jeckyl... If you ever heard me play, you'd know I have no business calling anyone else's playing "half-ass". Dig those titles. Took me back. Wasn't Throckmorton a character on Felix the Cat? If not that one a contemporaneous toon. IIRC he was either a spoiled or mischievous brat, always getting into everything. Or maybe I dreamt it (:

Yowzah! See you at Fat Cat...

Sad. But at least he still got it. Gotta get through the blockage, which doesn't seem easy in his case. Lots of residual damage, but where there's life...

(: Whew. Thought I was gonna open this and it would say I was half-ass. Which I wouldn't deny... As for myself, I've given up trying to keep up with Bird practicing. My new, readjusted target: Tweetie Pie.. If that doesn't work out either waiting in the, um, wings are Heckyl and Jeckyl...

On a perhaps thinly related note has anyone heard anything about Peter Green? I read a year or so ago he was trying to get it together again with a band. Like a lot of kid blues players around Brooklyn I looked up to him way back when, and his stuff probably would hold up well if I listened now. He was so pure and lyrical. I felt really bad hearing about all his troubles but also felt that what had to be a pure heart had to be at least part of what got him off track. Like he supposedly sold one of his famed guitars to a guy for like $250, reasoning that it was fair b/c that's what HE paid (40+ yrs. ago). The guitar ended up selling for around $10,000-if the story's true. Anyway, I was wondering what happened w/his band.

Well, Eddie definitely has some different opinions on things. Wouldn't accept anyone's as gospel, there's always personal feelings, senses of being slighted, etc. that all sensitive artists have. I have no reason to doubt the story of Hank sticking up for him, sounds right. I wasn't there though, so...

Beautiful thread, guys. My compliments. I stopped listening to Hank, for no particular reason. Maybe b/c with so many moves in the last years my collection is in storage w/various friends or partly lost. I always dug his lyricism and honesty. I liked that solo on A Tribute to Someone on an early Herbie Hancock recording, can't remember which one now. I liked Reach Out, mentioned in the interview. He and Woody Shaw brought each other out nicely. And George Benson was just off the hook that entire session, esp. on Good Pickin's, which I guess Hank wrote as a feature for him. And Hank seemed to have strong character, for all of his struggles. I know he stood by my friend (Eddie Diehl) who he wanted. on Thinking of Home. I guess Alfred Lion balked or wanted a bigger name. Hank told him 'Eddie's on the date or there's no date. The story of that recording and a few about Jack McDuff are on The Eddie Diehl Movie, the entirety of which-w/nice recent examples of Eddie's playing is viewable on youtube.

I know it well. And use it with glee...

I figured out what to do about those threads-not this one, people are behaving quite nicely-where a controversial or successful musician gets hammered and people, including myself, say the same predictable things crankily: stay away. I find it doesn't help anything and will leave it at that.

Amen. Ain't that a bitch? What a fractious 'family' we've come to be. Good points, Mark. I quote my friend the late and brilliant Chuck Clark: 'he sure got a lot of young cats playing'. Happy birthday to EVERYONE having one today. May it be peaceful and productive. And GO GET 'EM, VALERIE!!!

According to his amazon.com page T.J. English writes a lot about organized crime activity. He's author of 2 books on Irish gangs: The Westies-which, I take it, is well-known, and Paddy Whacked. There's one on the Italian-American mafia and how they lost Cuba to the revolution: Havana Nocturne. The book on Whitmore-of whom I'd never heard but he made me care about-probably as good a description as any of good writing-is Savage City. Judging from the passion and skill he showed even in the 'tight writing' required in op-ed writing they should all be well-worth reading.

The Dutch author's name is Jeroen de Valk (Valk is Dutch for falcon). Thanks. And I hope the word 'Dutch' isn't inappropriate or an insult to the Netherlands. I lived in Den Haag twice and loved it. Just using shorthand.

Thanks!

I hope it's good-and worthy. I'm a huge fan. Chet seems to be the constant subject of bios and film for the wrong reasons, namely to perpetuate or trade on this myth of golden boy turned noir-junkie-monster. James Gavin's book I had such a bad reaction to I damn near gave up reading (see above). The Dutch author (Jerome de Voek? Hope I didn't mangle it) I thought dealt with the music very well w/o sidestepping the human frailties. He just didn't turn it into a circus.

This touched me as much as anything in print media has in a while. About the life and death of a guy railroaded by a racist 1964 N.Y. justice system into confessing to murders and an attempted rape. He spent 9 years in jail before being cleared, and was broken but not embittered. He was front-page news back then but recently died w/o a murmur from the press. The author of a book on Whitmore's life and times, T.J. English, wrote this moving tribute, which appears on p. A 21 in the print edition. Will someone w/a computer please post a link?

What Chuck said. It's amazing that this discussion is still going on, and people's backs are still getting up over what no one generally cares about in the states, less than no one in Europe, and few in the jazz world anywhere anymore (especially musicians-trust me on that. 10-15 yrs. ago, maybe). To paraphrase an illustrious new member 'dead topic walking'. I mean if it floats your boats go ahead. It's my opinion, no more or less. I just think it time wasted and better spent on other things like, say, getting kids to like live music-so jazz and other musics will have an audience 25-30 yrs. from now.